Muito confuso, muito cheio de gracinha desnecessária... ( )

A good read, but this may just be nostalgia for an episode that firmly was stuck in my memory.

Fun to see how the story is every so slightly different in places compared to the aired version. On the whole they don't dramatically change the story, but they do give some insight into some of the characters motivations (except Duggan, he just likes hitting things). ( )

This is not my favorite Doctor Who episode. Not by a LONG shot. The Fourth Doctor (who is featured in this book) is My Doctor, as Whovians reckon things, but this episode has never been a highlight for me. It seems that The Doctor isn't the star of this episode - and the star isn't even his companion, Romana. (Yes, I realize she's also a Time Lord. She's still his companion.) The star of this episode is the city of Paris. And that's not what I enjoy most from Doctor Who episodes.

I have read (well, listened to) another of James Goss' Doctor Who stories, but this is the only one which was a TV episode first. I liked the other one a lot more, because I was able to enjoy it for itself and not with the episode constantly running in my head as background to the story. (Granted, I also liked it because it was narrated by David Tenant.) This one was well written, but had the same issues that the TV episode did. I don't read Doctor Who to read about Paris any more than I watch the show for that reason.

I did enjoy the additional background we see into the other characters, and the humor was lovely. My chief complaint is with the plot, and not the execution. ( )

The Doctor very rarely succeeds in actually taking a holiday, but Paris 1979 is one of the better possible places to try. K-9 has to stay behind on the TARDIS because Parisian dogs are not nearly as well trained as he; the Doctor and Romana, meanwhile, head out to cafes, eat delicious food, and admire the paintings in the Louvre. Their holiday then gets upended by a time-bending art heist and an alien attempting to end the Earth to bring his fragmentary selves back together. Just another day at the office. But at least they can eat croissants while sorting things out.

This novelization by James Goss was written mostly using the rehearsal scripts of the TV story as a basis, with some bits taken from the final broadcast version where it was useful. Goss captures the flavour of Adams’s writing well, especially by lifting wholesale some of Adams’s stage directions (e.g., describing someone who has been hit on the head by saying that they “go down like a sack of turnips”). Of the three Adams stories that Goss has novelized, this is my favourite so far. The Pirate Planet felt really long, and the Krikkitmen one looked really long, too long for what I wanted at the time. But this story is pacy and weird and silly and fun, and makes a great afternoon’s reading. ( )

This was crazy! Loved every bit. ( )